Pet Photos

Rascal's Tribute

Lori's Other Pets

All about Rascal

Pet Tip

Most dog owners are aware that dog noses are extremely sensitive. This is due to the quantity of olfactory or ‘smell’ receptors in a dog’s nose. Whereas humans have around five million olfactory receptors, dogs have two hundred and twenty million. This makes their noses exponentially more sensitive than a human’s. Most times a dog’s sensitive nose works to our benefit. All kinds of dogs are used as service dogs to help humans find missing people, sniff out explosives, drugs etc. They can smell people coming from quite a distance and alert us to their presence. There are some embarrassing occasions however, when a dog’s nose is just too sensitive from our human perspective. Most notably this occurs when dogs try to sniff humans in their private areas.

This behaviour is a common one in dogs and equally common is the fact that it upsets most dog owners. The reason some dogs sniff at a human’s private parts is the same reason they sniff the private parts of other dogs. We know that when they smell other dogs in this way they can tell the sex, rank (is the dog more dominant or submissive) age and other information about the dog.

My nickname is Goofy! My favorite past time is buggin' my brother, Rowdy. I like to follow along behind him and trip him as he walks - he's such a klutz! He falls off window ledges, trips over the stairs, and runs into things!

For some reason, I'm jinxed. Everything bad happens to me: I've had my tail caught in the door, I've almost been strangled 3-4 times when my head has got stuck under the chair! One time, when I was trying to hit Rowdy on the head, my arms got caught in the back spokes of the chair and I couldn't get loose. I've fallen in the bathtub, I've almost fallen in the toilet and, worst of all, I fell head first into the garbage and couldn't get out until my human mom rescued me!

I've finally figured out how to get out of trouble - it's REALLY easy! You just have to look CUTE! Whenever I've done something that I know I shouldn't have done, especially when I get caught at it, rather than running and hiding, I go and rub up against my human mom's legs, roll over onto my back and give my cutest look! Instead of getting yelled at, I almost always get my tummy rubbed and get picked up for kisses!

My job is to keep my human mom company when she plays the piano. I sit beside her on the bench and every so often I'll help her play some of the notes. For some reason, she doesn't seem to appreciate my talent!

Claim to fame: I won the Canadian Living Online Magazine "Cute, Wild, & Wacky Pet Photo Contest" for September, 2002

You can see my brother, Rowdy, and my mom, Pooh Bear, at their own websites. You can also see my new little sister, Punkin, and my pesky new cousin, Aja. Punkin looks kind of like the rest of us - black and fuzzy, except with no white. Aja, on the other hand, looks very strange. She's all scrawny with spots, a striped tail, and blue eyes, and is VERY hard on the ears (when she yells - which is every time you look at her - it sounds like finger nails on a chalkboard)!